I have an unquenchable penchant for making New Year’s Resolutions. So far, not much has come of any of them. This year, I am humoring myself by making a single one: to floss my teeth.

I admit I am bad about dentists. I go have my teeth cleaned about once every five years or so. Every time, the dentist says my teeth are fine, but I should floss more. Once I had to have a cavity filled. Just once. So I’m not really very motivated to go more often. However, I feel the usual guilt about flossing that I hope I share with most other non-perfect humans on the planet who mean to floss, but don’t. Since the process takes a whole five minutes, I decided it was the perfect resolution. I can be successful!

So those handy charts I printed with space for my weight and what I eat and what kind of exercise I do: not resolution related. Nothing to see here. Move along. I bought new tennies at Target today, two pair. One pair is brown and sporty-looking, perfect for someone who might be walking more. The other pair is funny-looking, the kind that theoretically exercise one’s whole body by making one laugh every time one puts on one’s shoes and rocks back and forth on the curved sole. Maybe that’s not exactly how the shoes work, but it is what happened when I put them on. I have no idea if the shoes actually work. These are not the shoes Spike Lee was talking about in the commercial. And they have no relation, not even a little bit, to anything like a resolution.

My only resolution is to floss my teeth. Me and the waxy whiteness, we’re like this these days. Every evening, I’ll have those nice little dents in my fingers from where the floss temporarily cuts off circulation to the tips and I look like I have frostbite or leprosy or something.

Pay no attention to the blank line on the grocery list where soda has been lately. Not resolution related at all. Nor is it related to my new bedtime rituals, my smaller portion sizes, my increased activity level or anything else. It is just a blank space.

My resolution is to floss my teeth. No one wants gingivitis (warning: disgusting picture). No one even wants to try to spell it.

Vitamins? Vitamins have nothing to do with tooth-flossing. Calcium, it could be argued, is tangentially related, but as I mentioned before: strong teeth.

Getting up early again and writing is not a resolution. Nope. Nothing of the sort. It is just renewed interest in a habit. I have only made one single resolution, so the increased frequency of my time in the green chair is simply coincidental and nothing to notice particularly.

I’m not sure my tooth-flossing resolution will stick. I mean, resolutions have this way of setting me up for failure. I pay all this attention to my plan and I miss one day and then I’m a complete and total loser. It almost seems like I’ll do better not attaching a label to my decision to change any particular behavior. But, in the spirit of tradition, I resolve to floss my teeth.